Oregon Music News: Oregon’s all-genre music magazine since 2009

08/05/2016

Catching up with THOUGHT VOMiT

By THEA PRIETO // "One of our favorite songs...a gritty, back-to-basics punk jam called ‘Steel Toe Tap,’ which basically recollects getting beaten down by someone for the first time and coming back up with a snarky, instigating attitude." -- Spencer Clark

Since THOUGHT VOMiT’s tour of the Pacific Northwest last April, the hardcore punk band from Northern California has been at work on their anticipated fourth album. Due to be released by Halloween of this year, the new album will no doubt be in keeping with the sound THOUGHT VOMiT fans have come to celebrate, a crossover thrash that elbows itself mouth-foaming between metalcore and garage punk, and funk-struts through the grittiest leftovers of nu-metal. It is the kind of music that has led the band to open for such acts as Soulfly, DRI, and Angry Samoans, and it is the kind of music that has afforded THOUGHT VOMiT numerous opportunities to perform up and down the West Coast.

While preparing for the release of the 2016 album, currently titled Punk’s Brutal Retaliation, vocalist Spencer Clark reflected on the band’s Makes No Cents tour.

“Our Northwest tour was a tremendous success,” said Clark. “We had a killer time making friends in Oregon, meeting new artists in Ashland and Grants Pass. The people that came to the show were very supportive given the fact it was literally our first time playing out of our home state. We followed up on those shows with a memorable couple of days in Eugene and can’t wait to make it back there again in the future.”

From Oregon, THOUGHT VOMiT traveled into Tacoma and Seattle, Washington to join up with such groups as Slugged, Poor Life Decisions, The Skyemonkey, and Bury It Deep, before moving south to Reno, Nevada to perform with Not A Part Of It and Mugen Hoso from Tokyo, Japan.

“The bands we joined up with on the tour were very eclectic,” said Clark, “and they complimented our sound, from the hard rock, hip-hop style of Justinsayne N8V to Slugged’s grindy deathcore. There were some good stories and people too. In Arcata, we had the pleasure of respectfully declining an invitation to take part in a rather undesirably orgy. We did, however, get to meet and chat with an individual who happened to be a mortician, whose apartment was decorated with animals and objects resting in jars of formaldehyde. The best decoration was a large, full body of a decaying pelican, it all was totally cool.”

“That’s where the title for our new song ‘Pelican Witch’ came from,” said drummer Clayton Prieto. “The lyrics came years before, you know, you can write rifts years before and write verses on the job or on a lunch break, but yeah, she was rad. That night definitely coined the title.”

Over the next few months, the band will finish producing their new album, which means THOUGHT VOMiT will have soon released four full-length albums and two EPs since the band’s formation in 2008. THOUGHT VOMiT’s third album, Can’t Understand Normal Thinking, was released only just last year in early June.

“We are almost done with our fourth full-length album,” said Clark, “which will be completely recorded, mixed, and engineered by ourselves. A DIY ethic has always been integral to the band. Jordie Hilley [bassist] and Chris Meyer [guitarist] spent a good deal of their hours on everything, and we hope to release the album by October this year. One of our favorites songs would definitely be a gritty, back-to-basics punk jam called ‘Steel Toe Tap,’ which basically recollects getting beaten down by someone for the first time and coming back up with a snarky, instigating attitude. On a completely different note, our final track on the album ‘Sync the Skies’ is a twelve-minute concept song written about our culture’s undeniable dependency on technology and the Internet.”

Check out the music video for THOUGHT VOMiT’s newest single “Glad to Lose,” and keep an eye out for their next tour to Oregon.

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Comments

Sheli Hunt

Thought Vomit are my boys. I have loved them from the beginning. They are a great bunch of guys.. True to their form and character. My favorite local band!!!!! They're gonna make it big someday soon. VM

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